


Tides

by TheoMiller



Series: Not A Rom Com [3]
Category: Fantastic Four (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:31:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5067010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I would trade 10,000 days for one more hour with you. --- There's nothing to win back, nothing to gain but the completion of his life's work – and a shadow of it at that, in the hands of some boy who thought he'd succeed where Victor himself had failed – and a chance to see what he's lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tides

"I trust Sue," says Victor.

He shouldn't, it's irrational and it'll only ruin him. But he's not an idiot. He knows he's already ruined – Sue is going to be the death of him.

Maybe it's confirmation bias, but looking back, he's pretty sure he knew it all along. Not just the cynicism, not just the general idea that endings were a certainty – entropy, always entropy, always churning closer to the inevitable heat death of the universe – but a surety that they were going to crash and burn.

But. But he can't resist.

Franklin Storm is part of the reason, part of why he feels like he's been hooked somewhere in his ribcage and is just waiting for Baxter to reel him back in. The man is impossible. He's manipulative, but he manipulates with an inner light of morality. Victor hates him. Victor is also certain that Franklin Storm is a father figure to him like no-one has ever managed to be, and the idea of letting him down again is as much anathema as passing up the chance to see her again.

Franklin leaves, with a barbed instruction that Victor clean himself up.

Victor resists for an entire six minutes before he yanks his custom designed headset off and starts throwing together haphazard piles of things to bring along, things to lock away with an encryption of his own design, and things to burn lest someone come looking for his work.

He's manic. Things break in his hands as he grabs them too violently – he's being emotional and it's not a good look on him, but he doesn't know how to stop moving now that he's so close to having things he'd never let himself want.

Second chances, they don't ever matter, people never change. He blames Sue for this, for filling his head with pop rock lyrics. His memory is an incredible, _rare_ thing. His mind is precious commodity that, given a chance, could save this sorry sack of a world. He doesn't need to see her sitting on the roof of the Baxter building in his jacket and her favorite flannel shirt, looking up at the moon that's mostly eclipsed by the poisonous light of the city, doesn't need the perfect recollection of the shades of brown in her eyes, certainly doesn't need the knowledge of what her perfume smells like after it's worn off partially, mixing with how her skin smells, with sweat and shampoo and soap.

He hits the table, and is immediately, embarrassingly grateful that it's a card table he picked up from the side of the road and not an actual, decent table, because if it were, his hand would be broken. As it is, the table collapses and his hand hurts like the devil. But the pain cuts through the haze, and he props his hands against a sturdier table and takes a deep breath.

 _You're burning too bright,_ Sue's voice says in his mind, because he's stirring up memories along with dust and mold spores. _You're going to consume yourself and collapse_.

 _I'm on the verge of a breakthrough,_ he'd said then. _I just need to figure out what I'm missing_.

But then Harvey had started trying to exploit his machine, and forced his hand, and now he was late to his own breakthrough.

Victor turns and kicks the broken card table again for good measure, and then goes to get a shower, a shave, and a haircut, as if cleaning himself up will change anything. _You've already lost her_ , he thinks savagely, his mind throwing up images of Sue with some nameless, faceless, insipid boy at Baxter. There's nothing to win back, nothing to gain but the completion of his life's work – and a shadow of it at that, in the hands of some boy who thought he'd succeed where Victor himself had failed – and a chance to see what he's lost.

It's a gamble, but one with decent gain in exchange for minimal loss. He's got nothing left to lose, his crowning achievement a jewel in some Baxter golden boy's crown, and Sue. Well. Sue's been lost for years. That's not what concerns him about this. What concerns him is the certainty that, if he had anything and everything to lose on the smallest chance at seeing Sue's eyes light up again like they'd used to – there'd be no contest, no hesitation. He'd throw himself headlong at the eye of a needle on the back of a camel.

He stands in the dingy shower, staring blankly at the wall with memories of Sue churning through his mind, until the water runs cold.


End file.
